BFS High School Training

[Guest guest]

Mel Siff writes:

<< Sorry, but I still have to stress that it is impossible to break 8

personal records, every day, every week, every year, year after year,

since this runs completely counter to the laws of physiological adaptation.

Even if you " sneak " in the smallest of increments, you will eventually

(actually after not many years) reach a " sticking point " if your bodymass

has remained the same. >>

As long as this absurd topic is continuing--and I'm still getting a huge

laugh out of it. IF there are 50 exercises for chest in the rotation (one per

training session) I can easily intuit resistance gains for the rest of ones

life--with much less performance gain as opposed to a type " training "

gain of 1-2 records a week over 6? chest exercises.

Still in all--the entire topic highlights the need for variation, record

keeping and the possibility of " training " max's every session (training maxs

--which Siff and Zatsiorski both estimate to be 3-12% below major

competition max!) A huge difference in neural cost!

[Good point - if you draw up a list of every barbell, dumbbell and other

exercise

variation you can think of, you will have an encyclopaedia of 10 000 exercises,

so that one can be sure of breaking a few records every week for much of one's

life.

What a sneaky, expert marketing way of guaranteeing success! Mel Siff]

Jerry Telle

Lakewood CO USA

[Guest guest]

Harvey Maron writes:

<< This is even more likely after a day like today when I shoveled snow

for five and a half hours. >>

Telle:

I guess beauty has its price too--my hyperbole was only meant to illustrate

that one can create any situation one wants to make a commercial point--but

then you know that!

Buy yourself an ATV with a blade-- it's a great deal of fun [for snow

clearing]!!

Jerry Telle

Lakewood CO USA

[Guest guest]

I agree that it does seem like so much guruesque hype to state that

someone is going to set PR's on lifts every week, ad infinitim.

This is even taking into consideration that most of the humans using

this are pubescent males with bodies loaded with more testosterone

than they know what to do with and who may be new to the weight

room.

Dave DeGeronimo writes:

<<Without too much detail, note that records are set based on reps,

weight, or sets giving a higher probability to guarantee at least 8

records. >>

**** I believe this is exactly where the list *would* like to have the

detail because it appears that there is some scheme afoot to insure

that the PR's happen. I could set a PR every week, too, if I only

added a half pound to deads, squats and bench presses, assuming I

didn't start at a point where I was already lifting as much as

possible. This is Stuart Mc's idea of how to keep a cycle

going for weeks on end, what he calls " little gems. " Possibly BFS

doesn't work quite like this, but I would be interested in knowing

how they figure this out. Talk about an ego stroke! Of course,

maybe that's the idea, since young guys seem to require that sort of

thing.

<<Further, the program is based on the BIG three lifts . . . >>

**** This is very interesting since the information I seem to be

getting from the really enlightened coaches is that weightlifting,

such as the Drop Snatch, needs to be incorporated. As Dan Fichter

explains in his article now up on Dolfzine about the " Dive Start, " a

football player in the midst of a game is an " environment of chaos. "

Just like a soldier in combat, this person doesn't have time to stop

and think; he/she must react immediately and instinctively. Does

BFS incorporate this in its training or is it just a standard weight

training program?

Rosemary Vernon, Editor

Dolfzine On-Line Fitness, Inc.®

A Not-For-Profit Corporation

www.dolfzine.com

Marina del Rey, CA

IronRoses@...

http://www.chuckietechie.com

[Guest guest]

I have to agree with Mel with regard to the claims here - My thinking on

this program is that many of the athletes had not a previoiusly structured

program, or their coaches were perhaps less diligent on tracking things

previously, less structure and thus you see a progression of " records " . So

perhaps this group serves a good purpose in organizing coaches, giving them

a framework, and assisting in such good habits, but most football coaches

are hired for football knowledge, not strength coaching? So therein lies a

place some can perhaps find an organized structure, to allow them to use it

and then focus on the true business at hand, football coaching...

I did have a few weeks in 2002 where I broke set records for my lifts but

that was only 5 weeks, 1 per week, during a surge in ONE of my lifts. I do

not see where a person would be breaking 8 per week, week after week, unless

the person was completely new to lifting and thus HAD nowhere to go but up?

After 6 years of competing powerlifting, it would be a very pleasant thought

but a highly unlikely one, to have all my lifts surge (including the assist

work, for that's the only way to get 8 here) all the same week, every week?

Newer lifters often have new personal records - and perhaps this program's

claims are based on that, rather than taking a TRAINED up football player,

say one who competes PL already and THEN extracting 8 records per week....

the point being those with TRUE maximums, having trained them for years,

with consistent form and effort, as Mel points out, are highly unlikely to

have 8 records every week! A controlled test, using already max lifting

athletes, with such high results, THAT would get MY attention and I'd be

tempted to try it, as a competing strength athlete!

The Phantom

aka Schaefer, CMT, CSCS, competing powerlifter

Denver, Colorado, USA

> Dave DeGeronimo wrote:

>

> <As a personal trainer and a high school football coach, I highly

recommend

> the BFS program. I attended a clinic given by Coach Greg Shepard and based

> on the sets and reps system, it is very attainable to break 8 records.>

>

> Mel Siff commented:

>

> <<Eight records a week, week after week, year after year? I cannot think

of

> any world champion weightlifters or powerlifters who have ever managed

> that feat over a period of, say, 10 years. Maybe their programmes needed

> some revision! >>

>

> I suppose it all comes down to how you define a record. If you start the

> students off at a weight they find easy to handle, and only allow an

> increase of 1 repetition per week, then I'm sure you can keep this

increase

> up for many weeks, thus producing many new records. Especially when you

> consider the amount of hormones that are flowing around at that age.

>

> [On that basis, then many other training approaches besides BFS will

produce

> continued progress or records during the more novice years of one's

training.

> Mel Siff]

>

[Guest guest]

Telle wrote:

<Well Harvey you surprise me! If you have 5 lifts and lift every day thats

the opportunity for 35 records a week! Geeee!>

Casler:

Telle, once again your genius is undeniable! : )

And if you do 3 sets of each exercise, the possibility moves to 105 records.

(actually they are personal bests, since a record might indicate a maximum

effort, and as I said in the last post, these are not always 100% efforts,

they are measured and safe progressions.)

And again, I am making a big assumption that the BFS system is similar to

what I use personally. Each set is an opportunity to do better than the

last workout on that same set.

Mel Siff writes:

<Right - now let's apply the system which you describe and use. Suppose

that you started your very first bench press ever with a very modest 60kg and

add

only 0.5kg to your lift every workout. If you train 3 times a week, then in

one year you will increase your bench press by 78kg. So, after 1 year of that

sort of training , you will be doing 138Kg, after 2 years 216kg, after 3 years

294kg, and after only 5 years, you would be doing 450kg - now, since we know

that

you have been lifting for a little longer than that, after 10 years, you ought

to be doing a bench press of only 840kg. Since your name does not appear in the

powerlifting world record books, it seems as if your method stopped working

many, many years ago and " The Principle of Eternal Progress " has been proved

wrong. Sorry, but I still have to stress that it is impossible to break 8

personal

records, every day, every week, every year, year after year, since this runs

completely counter to the laws of physiological adaptation. Even if you " sneak "

in the

smallest of increments, you will eventually (actually after not many years)

reach a

" sticking point " if your bodymass has remained the same.>

Casler writes:

I did not claim the system could make progress for years, I said I have used

it for years. Obviously progress is always limited by present capacity.

The advantage I find of using this system for trainees is that if progress

stalls, motivation drops. When each set becomes an opportunity to create a

personal best in that particular set, effort is generally higher.

Your example " does not " represent what I described. Although your math is

impecable, your understanding of how it might be limited is faulty.

Personal Bests are not limited to " weight only " as in your example. A

personal best could also be an increase in reps as in 10 to 11 and 11 to 12.

The old double progression system.

[The laws of adaptation also apply to increases in volume of work done. Mel

Siff]

Also does anyone really train the whole body 3 x a week anymore? I use

split routines which means each body area is trained usually 1 (possibly 2)

times a week.

[Even in split routines, especially with heavy or limit weights, many muscles

concurrently act as stabilisers and " prime " movers, so that much of the body

is still being trained. That is why, for example, one may never need to do

additional separate abdominal training if one does the powerlifting and

weightlifting lifts and their major variants. Mel Siff]

And I did not say that progress is made in " every " exercise every session.

In a typical workout with 3-5 sets of 4-6 exercises there is considerable

opportunity (12 to 30 to be exact) to either add a rep or weight to one or

more of the sets.

So, I certainly agree that virtually no one can sustain continued progress

in all exercises for years, (and I did not state the opposite) I also agree

that " micro " progressions of reps or loadings over long periods of time,

which continue to produce " personal bests " are valuable and motivational.

[That's all that we needed to know - that you appreciate that there are

physiological limits to one's increase in performance. The wording of

that BFS claim implied otherwise in similarly ambiguous terms. Mel Siff]

Whether or not this is the BFS system I don't know, but I have trained many

young athletes this way and find they thrive on progress and the motivation

it offers. I would seriously doubt that it differs in many ways from the

way most of us train or train our trainees.

The significant difference may be that more focus and awareness is placed on

making " each " set an opportunity to make an advancement and that advancement

is the " goal of the set " .

If one leaves each workout knowing that they have just completed a session

that, in total, was measurably better than any recent previous workout,

(even if it is only one rep better than the last) the feeling of progress

and the motivation that creates is maintained.

Regards,

Casler

TRI-VECTOR 3-D Force Systems

Century City, CA

[Guest guest]

My comments on BFS for high school training are:

1) The program seems to be a crude variant of Louie powerlifting

routines from the early days of Westside barbell. While this is a good

program and is proven to get people stronger, it isn't exceptionally well

suited to football. Some simple criticisms would be, incline bench should

be performed over flat bench; it is more " sport specific " since it more

closely resembles the pushing movement that would be used by linemen.

[specificity of any given exercise for any sport is not determined by how

similar its movement pattern is to that used in the sport. This is one of

the most common, erroneous beliefs in the world of so-called " functional "

training. See my article " Functional Training Revisited " in the NSCA's Strength

& Conditioning Journal Oct 2002. Mel Siff]

2) The point of any weightlifting program for an athlete is to make them

better at their sport through increased recovery ability, more strength,

lower incidence of injury, etc. The BFS program seems to miss this by over

emphasizing breaking personal records 8 times per workout. This is a

ridiculous notion on several accounts; who cares how many personal records

you break, that isn't the point of training. Striving to do this will most

likely lead to increasingly poor form and loads lifted that exceed the

capability of the athlete, especially with the inexperienced high school

athlete. Secondly, you're still working with high school students, setting

a new personal best each time probably won't happen. Most of these kids are

operating on suboptimal amounts of sleep, poor nutrition, and high stress

levels from classes, social pressure, relationships, identity crises, and

so on. This is of course offset by their youth, but regardless your average

high school athlete is going to make gains every time they workout.

3) Too dogmatically, the BFS system presents itself as the only effective way

to gain strength for a given sport, superior to any other. It also makes no

attempt to educate the athlete on what is important while working out, why

adaptations occur, why stagnation occurs, even why the given exercises are

chosen.

Dahms

Boston, MA